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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
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The Elzevir Library. u^lr^^ Cl-^^r^^^^ Weekly, $10.00 a Yean 

Vol. V. No. m. rrice Sixpence. aphi a?, im. 



y^ OLD PTLGKIMS 



TO 



Y"^ NEW 



1/ fL»yvM»'^ 



New York, Imprinted for JOHN ALDEN, and are to be sold at Ws 
Booke Shope on Pearl Street near the end of Oak Street. 



ROMANO MORE; 



Y= OLD PILGRIMS TO Y^ NEW 



FOREFATHERS' DAY, 



By JEREMIAH EAMES RANKIN. 



^ WAY 21 !886 ^ / 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER 

1888. 



75 ^^^^ 



TO MY FRIEND, 
GEOBGE II. HUGHES, 



Copyriprht, ir.P.fi, by John P. Alden. 



ROMANO MORE: 

OR, 

Y^ OLD PILGRIMS TO Y^ NEW, 

ON FOREFATHERS' DAY. 



Peculiar folk those Pilgrims were, 
AVe meet here to remember ; 

Peculiar virtues do they stir 
Within us— each December ! 

The very breezes brace us up, 

The time is sure to tone us, 
The viands, and the cheering cup : 

They'd surely not disown us. 

They were the people, we are now ! 

And this is why we meet here ; 
Just to renew our filial vow, 

And say soft things— and eat here. 

The glory their's to give us birth ! 

Within their loins they brought us ; 
That makes them royal ones of earth: 

Not the grand things they taught us. 



4 Y^ OLD PILGRIMS 

They left, 'tis true, old England's 
shores, 

Her trees, her lawns, her hedges ;^ 
They left unsettled some old scores, 

And gave no bonds or pledges. 

From judgment and from prison came, 

Cut oft* their generation ; 
To heraldry unknown, and fame, 

To feudal rank and station. 

But had we not in them been loined, 
Who would have sung and praised 
them ? 
Grand speeches made, sweet phrases 
coined, 
Or shaft, unfinished, raised them ? 

Once more, we watch them cross the sea, 
On Plymouth rock ascending ; 

Once more, to God the}^ bend the knee, 
With w^ave their voices blending. 

Again we're rushing down the shore, 
To be the first to meet them ; 

Behind are sev'ral thousand more. 
Would like to toast and eat them. 



TO YE NEW. i 

What if, back in the flesh they came, 
Led forward by Miles Standish ; 

A group, with many a Bible name, 
To modern ears outlandish ? 



What if they took us at our word, 
The figure, if they dropped it : 

And having all our soft phrase heard, 
Just thus they blandly stopped it : 



And who are you 1 if they should ask, 
Who gave you here a charter. 

The right to don the hero's mask. 
And play it fine as martyr ? 



When we were joyful we sang psalms: 
The woods and waters heard them ; 

Our hymns broke on the desert calms, 
And to devotion stirred them. 



We w^alked through Nature's grand old 
aisles. 

Whose roof the night stars kindle ; 
Compared with which, cathedral piles 

Down to clay-houses dwindle. 



YE OLD PILGRIMS 



Yoli worship in proud piles of stone, 
And, quizzing, scim the arclies ; 

God was our architect alone, 
His hand drooped low the larches. 



He led us in the monotone, 

With which the sea was breaking ; 
And in the pines' responsive moan, 

Beneath His garments shaking. 



Your service, ah, is far more grand ! 

The organ— power hydraulic ; 
Not filled with wind, by rude boy-hand. 

With now and then the colic : 



But, ready to go on all day, 

So very voluntary ; 
Long preludes, interludes to play, 

And thus the dull hour vary. 



She wipes the rouge from off her face, 
Aside lays last night's honor ; 

And leads you up the steps of grace. 
Your giddy prima- donna. 



TO Y^ NEW 



Six pieces lias lier repertoire, 
(That is tlie French for wallet), 

From week to week she sings them o'er, 
En regie, as they call it. 



She glides, she trills, she sinks, she 
vaults, 

Just as Herr MeisUr drilled her ; 
She plays his arts, displays his faults. 

To dazzle and bewilder. 



She gets her hundreds, by the year, 

Her hat the last sensation ! 
It hangs upon her dexter ear : 

Young blades have palpitation. 

They listen to her ev'ry breath. 
And watch her sylph-like motion ; 

She sings i?/<27?o, they're like death ; 
Then/or^e/— all devotion. 

They come to hear her part, she knows, 

Her vanity to Hatter ; 
Her Sunday claquers, demi-beaux ; 

And when she's done, they scatter.— 



8 YE OLD PILGRIMS 

Your teno7\ next, in swallow-tail, 
Takes up song's trail, and bears it, 

And then your alto lifts her wail, 
Your basso, then, deep shares it. 



You saints, if you your eyes shonld 
close, 

Would often lose your soundings ; 
Such worldly current round you flows. 

So earthy your surroundings. 

You sit ! they sing your souls away, 
Alas, to what strange places ; 

Their names, it would ofi'end to say, 
Their arts, their carnal graces. 



There's Robert le dlavolo, 
Or is it Faust, in snatches ? 

The sacred words disguise it so, 
The air, one scarcely catches. 



When sons of God to worship came. 
Why should the thing appal so ? 

There was a time, who could him blame, 
His Worship came there also. 



TO YE NEW. y 

And thongli liis music is unblest, 
You know liow to prepare it ; 

To dress it so in Sunday's best, 
As witli tlie stage to sliare it. 

You take the edge from off the truth, 

It is so roundly beveled ; 
You like your music, too, forsooth, 

Like crabs, the best bedeviled ! 

Your preachers come, in gown and 
bands. 

With primrose- tinted diction ; 
Manipulate with lily hands. 

And, then, their benediction. 

At last, the organ, crash on crash, 
Or in such strains entrancing. 

Through your high state of grace, you 
dash 
Aside all thoughts of dancing. 

'Twere hard to tell, which draws the 
most, 

You spread them like a plaster : 
The music, or the man you boast ; 

The quartette, or the pastor. 



10 Y^ OLD PILGRIMS 

You meet your preachers, next, at 
plays, 
Where foreign art is stalking ; 
AVhere on silk limbs the footlights 
blaze, 
Or Bernhardt is night-walking. 

They lure you up art's pleasing heights; 

You're sure there is no sin there ! 
If but you keep their skirts in sight, 

You cannot fail to win there. 

They punch and piety combine ! 

Not ours, the alliteration : 
Horses, cigars, and brands of wine ; 

On Sundays, preach salvation. 



They know the foreign galleries, 

Correggios and Murillos ; 
They know the foreign stars that please, 

And blink their peccadilloes. 

Of preaching, they have learned the art, 
You see, when they are through it. 

To play around, not touch the heart ; 
In short, how not to do it ! 



TO Y^ NEW. 11 

They cliloroform their hearers quite, 
Convert them, ere they knoAV it ; 

First charm the senses to delight, 
The Gospel net, then throw it. 



They engineer the church-machine, 
With hallelujali choker : 

The treasurer fills out the scene ; 
He sits behind as stoker. 



He furnishes the anthracite, 
And rides upon the tender ; 

Oils up the joints, till they work right. 
And gives the brass its splendor. 

You have your grand cathedral chimes. 
That hymns drip from the steeple ; 

Could men be saved by tunes and 
rhymes, — 
Alas, go by the people ! 

They somehow think, the Lord's not 
there. 

But, only art's devices ; 
If you are God's elect, they swear. 

They, too, will risk the crisis. 



12 YE OLD PILGRIMS 

You've Sunday concerts, too, we're told, 
Of masters, grand recitals ; 

Witliwind, you seek to feed Gfod'sfold, 
And quiet aching vitals. 

Revivals have gone out of date, 
The churches are so cranky ; 

When pastors get disconsolate. 
There's Moody with his Sankey. . 



There's Hammond, and there's Pente- 
cost, 

There's Stebbins, and there's Whittle; 
They preach and pray to save the lost, 

You sympathize— a little ! 



At any rate, you foot the bills. 
As if some freight, or cargo ; 

This mod'rate tax your conscience stills, 
'Tis but a slight embargo. 



Your churches have the world's conceit. 

Inspired by competition. 
In choirs and pastors, which will beat ; 

And souls in deep contrition. 



TO Y^ NEW. 13 

There is a census weekly kept, 

In ev'iy sacred journal, 
How many souls for sin liave wept, 

And left tlie ranks infernal. — 



We prayed the Lord for His sweet rain, 

His dew upon the grasses ; 
You telegraph, men take the train 

To come, and save the masses. 



You reap the harvest by machine, 
A spanking span before it ; 

You drive them on, with crack so keen, 
The yield, in print, you score it. 



This covers up all past defects, 
Sweet Gospel hymns they sing them ; 

Preach on the long- neglected texts, 
The wand 'ring sheep, they bring 
them. — 



We hear your colleges and schools 
We hope it may be libel— 

Decide they were celestial fools. 
Who wrote King James's Bible. 



U Ye OLD' PILGRIMS 

That -many wise meiij young and old 
Their sieves are wildly shaking, 

To find some nuggets of pure gold, 
To keep faith's bank from breaking. 



That ministers no longer tell 
What Bible- truths will save one ; 

But, mostly on this question dwell : 
The Bible, if we have one ! 



They have adopted courtly phrase, 
And speak in diction polished ;— 

That unbelief 's the last new craze, 
And hell has been abolished ! 



Rather, it's better understood. 
Like Paris, or like Cadiz ; 

It better suits the modern mood, 
And sweeter sounds, as hades. 



To Heav'n, a kind of vestibule. 
Where gather the departed. 

And try again for God's high school. 
For which before they started. 



TO Y^ NEW. 1^ 

Where saints hob-nob with infidels, 
And hold a long camp-meeting ; 

Where each his own opinion tells, 
Free-thinking, and free-seating ! 



Your entertainments, trne, are rare. 
Some hallowed Punch and Judy ! 

They make the children shout and stare, 
The old folks they make moody. 



A raffle now, and, then, a fair ! 

Such edifying meetings ! 
Convulsed with laughter, young folks 
are. 

And then convulsed with eatings. 



You stuff them full of silly talk, 
You sing some love-sick ballad ; 

Still, they are fain, as home they walk, 
To muse on that last salad : 



The lobster and the chicken there, 
The fish and fowl contending. 

Like Jacob and like Esau are 
In inward broils unending. 



16 Y^ OLD PILGRIMS 

You build your churches cruciform, 
And tip the sj^ire with crosses ; 

And there ensconce, all snug and warm, 
Your railroad kings and bosses. 

The poor once heard the Gospel 
preached, 

It proved the Christian era ; 
Religion now such height has reached 

She likes the paying hearer ! 

Your services the senses take. 
But, who's the God you're serving ? 

What balm have you for hearts that 
break. 
That need from God new-nervine: ? 



"to 



Each year you hold a week of prayer. 
When things, you bind and loose 'em; 

From near and far, the cranks are there, 
With swelling talk and bosom. 

They boast how close with God their 
walk. 

Who once walked with the lowly ; 
All modern Enochs by their talk, 

They are so very holy. 



TO YE NEW. 17 

And when they kneel to speak in 
praj-er, 

Their tones are like the thunder ; 
You hope, well- braced the rafters are, 

Or think you'll stand from under. 

But, this is strange, it always seems. 

Unless they're overrated ; 
There come from Heav'n no fire- 
wheeled teams. 

To see them safe translated. 

A kind of seven-day pray'r-machine, 
Each day, a crank to turn it : 

A verse, a talk, a hymn between, — 
The art, 'tis quick to learn it. 

You praise each other to the face. 
You laud such Christian union ; 

'Tis very doubtful if the grace 
AYill last till next Communion. 

You send the Gospel to all shores. 

So generous to share it ; 
As though 'twere oozing through your 
pores. 

Your great delight, to spare it. 



18 Y- OLD PILGRIMS 

Yoli have some millions in tlie South, 
You thought, they bore God's image ; 

Are we not brothers I cried your mouth, 
During your recent scrimmage. 

But over now, your ague -lit, 
There's scarcely leit a shiver ; 

"Our brothers, ah ! are in for it, 
Good Lord, but us deliver ! " 

You wanted them, through bralves to 
guide. 

And fight your failing battle ; 
But, now you've reached the other side, 

Let them wade through like cattle. 



You have some Pilgrims in tlie west. 

The pig-tailed Asiatics ! 
Your greatest statesmen think it best, 

To drop them from your statics. 



Did God not metes and bounds give men. 
Which side of the great oceans ; 

In Asia, Chinamen to pen, 

Rats, queues, and such strange 
notions ? 



TO Y*^ NEW. 19 

Into tliem pitch, they ya^III not fight ! 

The golden rule, apply it ! 
Give them the Gospel's gentle light ;^ 

A brick-bat '\ Yes, let fiy it ! 



The Indian ? Ah ! you take yours dead. 
Within his brain, a bullet ; 

Or, house him in a wretched shed, . 
Where you'd not set a pullet. 



His metes and bounds you him assign, 

You call it reservation ! 
You hem him there, with troops in line, 

He dies next, of starvation. 



You've stripped of fish and game the 
woods, 

A spade and hoe have given ; 
You've measured ofi* his land in roods, 

And said : Now, go to Heaven ! 



He grunts and thinks within himself. 
The whole thing is all gammon ; 

You give him whiskey for his pelf. 
Your God ~ v/hile you serve mammon. 



20 Y^ OLD PILGRIMS 

One fifth of all your revenue 
Pay brewers and distillers ; 

A bloated, gross, besotted crew, 
That tipplers make, and swillers.— 

You've got your Turk, too, in the West, 

With oriental harem ; 
And such a conscience in his breast, 

You cannot coax or scare him. 



At AYashington, you legislate ! 

But, what cares he in Utah ? 
Your senators may fuss and prate, 

Your laws, he makes them neuter. 



He has commission from the skies, 
A last-day dispensation, 

Sinai's great precepts to revise, 
And spit upon the nation. 



You've had your Sodom, with God's 
fire. 

You're nursing ,your Gomorrha ; 
As sure as God is God, His ire 

Is gath'ring 'gainst to-morrow. 



TO YE NEW. 21 

His cup will come, as sure as fate, 

No mercy in the mixture ; 
The dregs you'll drink, and drink them 
straight, 

And, then, you'll be a fixture ! 



There is one class extinct on earth, — 
For that, we'll give you credit,— 

Of sinners there's a wondrous dearth, 
The class, to death you've fed it. 



You have such modern names for things, 
Your thieves yon call defaulters. 

Your biggest rascals, they take wings, 
And laugh at jails and halters. 



The wicked, mostly clergy are, 
With now and then a deacon ; 

Descending like a falling star. 
Or, lifted like a beacon. 



We read, that once there martyrs were, 
Broiled at the stake, we know, too ; 

But sirloin, done a little rare, 
'S the only one you'd go to ! 



22 Y^ OLD PILGRIMS 

The martyr- business is played out, 

That's your idea about it ; 
To mount the air, 'mid tlame and shout, 

Might do— you rather doubt it. 



You live to eat, this is your forte, 
No nerve is like the gastric ; 

The stomach is dernier ressorf^ 
You play this as your last trick. 



For men are like monagorios. 

To Darwin this conceding ; 
You do with them just what you please, 

Ii taken after feeding. 



Old Adam thus you're driving out. 
With coffee, tongue, and muffins ; 

In order to complete the rout, 
You've to keep on the stuffings. 



The tiger and the lamb lie down, 
With cake alike you feed 'em ; 

AYhen crammed so full, from toe to 
crown, 
A little cliild can lead them. 



TO Y^ NEW. 23 

And tliis is why we are so blue, 
And breatlie out such defiance ; 

We've had no chance to sit with you, 
And sample drink and viands. 



The pious are great folk to eat. 

Proverbial the saying ; 
And yet you've furnished us no seat. 

But keep us here delaying. 



At this, up spoke our President, 
Who saw there' d be poor picking ; 

And word the caterer back sent. 
He'd kept one Plymouth chicken ! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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